Read Online To Be a Family (Harlequin Superromance) by Joan Kilby - Free Book Online Page A

makes you think you’d be lucky a second time?”
    “You don’t understand anything.” She glanced back, her voice
trembling. “If I’d had my breasts removed I wouldn’t have been able to nurse our
children.”
    It was on the tip of his tongue to say, they wouldn’t even have
children if she wasn’t alive. He stopped himself. She would never admit she was
wrong. If he kept pressing her for an acknowledgment that her choice of
treatments hadn’t been the safest, or reacted to her accusations about how he’d
hurt her, they would keep on fighting.
    “Can we please move on?” Katie added.
    He was reluctant—they were talking, really talking, for the
first time in years. And as far as he knew there was a chance she couldn’t even
have kids after going through chemo. But he didn’t want to fight Katie, he never
had. Now more than ever he wanted to be friends. Having Tuti come to live with
him and seeing Katie again had stirred his old dreams of a home and family. It
was probably wishful thinking but maybe if Katie got to know him again, if they
could get past the old stuff, they might have a chance.
    The way to her heart was through Tuti. Katie loved kids and she
liked to be needed. And God knows, Tuti needed her. His family, while they were
willing to help with Tuti, didn’t have Katie’s teaching skills. Plus their time
was limited. His mother was willing to babysit when she could but she worked,
writing a column for the local newspaper. Same went for his sisters, one a
lawyer, the other running a café. He could hire a tutor but in spite of Katie’s
claim that he didn’t know her any longer, he did know she had the patience and
the resolve and the dedication Tuti needed. Tuti was in a foreign country with
foreign customs and limited English. She was overwhelmed and the more familiar
faces he could give her, the better it would be. So yes, for all those reasons,
Katie did top his list of potential tutors.
    The family at the next table was getting up to leave, strapping
their baby into a stroller. Tuti would be back any second. John wanted a
positive connection with Katie so they wouldn’t go back to being formal with
each other. He took a breath and summoned the kind of courage that didn’t get
exercised much on the police force.
    “It hurts that you don’t want to know me.” The epithet
“superficial” especially had stung. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I
promise I won’t try to flirt with you again. I’m not asking to take up where we
left off.” Yet . “But I would like to be
friends.”
    There, he’d said it. If she turned down his friendship after
all that groveling, he would move away from Summerside and never come back.
“So…?”
    “You’re only saying this because you want my help with
Tuti.”
    “I do want your help. I don’t deny that. But that’s not why I’m
flaying myself before you. If you don’t have time for her then I’ll figure
something else out. But just don’t…cut me dead when I meet you on the street.
Don’t leave a party the minute I arrive. Say ‘good day’ like you mean it. Have a
coffee with me now and then.” He felt his throat catch and cleared it. “It’s not
a lot to ask.”
    “I’m sorry.” Her hands clasped tightly around her teacup. “I
wasn’t aware I was that mean to you.”
    “Well, you are. People comment.”
    “I’ll try not to do it again.” She sucked in a breath, regained
her composure. “So, do I have your word—no flirting? No innuendo? No double
entendres?”
    He grimaced. Had he really been that louche? “None of that. If
only you’ll give Tuti extra help to bring her up to speed.”
    Katie tilted her head to one side. The curve of her breasts
beneath her draped blouse rose and fell as she thought about it. His mind
drifted in an inappropriate direction. Damn it all. He was a man. He couldn’t
help the way his body reacted. She could ask him to keep his mouth shut but she
couldn’t control his